It’s not everyday a bunch of beer league players get invited to play a junior hockey team. The skill level clearly doesn’t add up. But what if the beer league scrubs were spotted an insane amount of goals as a head start? Could they pull out the win?

When the Muskegon Lumberjacks invited us to Michigan to take on one of USHL’s top teams, we jumped at the opportunity. Getting to share the ice and play competitive hockey against potential future NHLers is so cool!

They recognized the disadvantage and were generous enough to spot us a 20-goal lead. Surely, we can hold onto that lead, right? Overcoming a 20 goal deficit is a tall task, but you can never count the “Jacks” out.

In the 1st period, we kept it tight, thanks to our outstanding goalie, Vincenzo Arnone. They only managed to score 4 goals. We felt good about ourselves because we were on pace to win. You can tell the Lumberjacks were not pleased with that 1st period performance, so as expected, they came out flying in the 2nd - even pulling their goalie to play with an extra skater. But again, Arnone stood on his head, only allowing 5 goals while facing a gazillion shots.

20-9 after 2 periods of play. We’re still in this and on pace for a massive win!

Onto the 3rd period. 10 minutes of hockey to go, BarDown up by 11. Desperation started to creep in and the Lumberjacks came out flying, scoring at a crazy pace! With only 2:30 minutes remaining, they closed the gap to just 1 goal! 20-19 for BarDown. We were digging in but our stamina was letting us down, leading to sloppy  mistakes - something we couldn’t afford to do this late into the game.

But in the dying moments, as tension rose, a stroke of brilliance illuminated the ice. With a sudden burst of inspiration, Cam Brennan won a massive D-zone faceoff, and in a seamless combination of skill and intuition, threaded a perfect pass to a breaking Eric Kirk.

1-on-1 with the lone defenceman, Kirk makes no mistake, shoots it hard along the ice, finding the back of the net! It was a goal that seemed to come from nowhere, but it was the culmination of vision, timing, and a dash of genius—sealing the victory in the final minutes and etching their names in the game’s history books.

 

 

Would this game have been 19-1 Muskegon if it started at 0-0? Yes. But we still believe this is the biggest upset of all-time.

Prove us wrong. And let us know what you thought of the video in the YouTube comments!